Cardiac surgery is the next frontier for same-day surgery. The movement of cardiovascular care from hospitals to freestanding surgery centers is being driven by...

It's often obvious when you outgrow your current space. At one of my former hospitals, the surgical schedule extended way too late in the day, surgeons weren't happy, and patients and staff complained about delayed...

When our editorial team researched the long list of new and recently renovated ASCs and HOPDs, we were impressed by the many examples of healthcare design at its finest....

This is a hectic time to run a GI center, isn't it? As you keep pace with newly scheduled colonoscopies and work through a backlog of postponed procedures, know the stakes...

Life in our small ASC is different from most hospitals in our area. We've traded responding to emergency codes in ICUs for the pleasure of spending holidays with loved ones, and the hustle and bustle of ERs for...

Long before we were in the grip of a global pandemic and surgical masks became fashion accessories, OR nurses were known to stash hard-to-come-by supplies such as gloves and gowns and, yes, N95s. Of course, COVID has...

Healthcare professionals often take their cues from the hospitality industry when designing new facilities. They want patients to be happy with the care experience,...

"If you build it, they will come." That famous statement about building baseball fields in Iowa also applies to constructing new spine centers. With recent technological advances,...

We have a multi-step protocol to complete for each knee, hip and shoulder replacement patient before the day of surgery. This protocol includes making pre-op calls to conduct a health assessment, an in-person visit...

Test your knowledge of current best practices with this informative exam.

Patients who go NPO in the hours leading up to their surgeries aren't physically prepared for the physical trauma they're about to endure. "Surgery is a major stress on the body," says Steven Bisch, MD,...

Reprocessing techs in our hospital who prepare instrument sets for sterilization use a seven-point checklist to ensure trays have been properly assembled. The checklist helps techs ensure instrument sets are loaded properly,...

Our facility's break room is very small, so we've posted a sign that says only six employees at a time can gather there during the pandemic. Numerous staff members are on break at once, though, so we spaced chairs...

Late last month, my cellphone buzzed with a text from my mom. She had sent a picture of her "I Got My COVID-19 Vaccine" sticker and said my dad got his, too. I was working on deadline, but paused, surprised by...

In the past tumultuous year as the pandemic raged across the country, outpatient facilities have been the subject of a renewed focus within the healthcare community...

If you want to roll out a patient warming protocol that requires your facility to invest time, resources money — and, of course, a change to the status quo — you need to give leadership a compelling reason why...

Now's this for stressful? A surveyor from one of the main accrediting agencies knocked on our surgery center's door early one morning in October 2019. The surprise visit...

What prompted you to go architecture school after medical school? I double-majored in biology and art history, with a fine arts minor, so I've always had an interest in architecture. I just assumed...

The two-inch red circle on the patient's sacrum was unmistakable. A PACU nurse noticed the deep tissue injury during a post-op assessment and called over to pre-op to see if one of her colleagues had documented...

Staff who need to call a code blue during an emergent situation sometimes hesitate to ask for help. In our hospital, nurses are educated and encouraged to call a code as soon as the need arises. An educational program...